Sheila Hutchinson (The Emotions) - A Profile

Sheila Hutchinson-Witt, born 17 Jan 1953 in Chicago, celebrates her 70th birthday today. She is of course one of three Hutchinson sisters along with Wanda and Jeanette who formed The Emotions. The youngest sister, Pamela, stepped in to replace Jeanette in 1977 when she left for a year to give birth to her second child, with EW&F's Philip Bailey. Pamela died in Sep 2020 aged 61 after a long illness.

Sheila and eldest sister Wanda are the mainstays of the group with Jeanette leaving on several occasions to raise her family replaced initially by cousin Theresa Davis and then by sister Pamela and later in the 80s by Adrianne Harris.

They started out as a gospel group using several names such as The Heavenly Sunbeams, Three Ribbons & A Beau, The Hutch Stereos, The Sunbeams and The Hutchinson Sunbeams whilst still infants (3,4 & 5 years old) in the 50s performing on TV shows and occasionally with the gospel great Mahalia Jackson. Two early singles were released as Hutch Stereo's in 1962 (a novelty Christmas double-sider) and The Sunbeams in 1964. 

Around 1967 they changed their name to The Emotions and released a few singles on Brainstorm and Twin Stacks before meeting Pervis Staples (Staples Singers) who became their manager and got them signed to the Stax imprint Volt in 1969. Under the wing of Isaac Hayes and David Porter they released their debut album "So I Can Love You" the same year. Much of their early material was posted in a post "The Emotions - The Early Sides" in Apr 2020, some of the links are now dead which I'll endeavour to replace.

Jeanette left the group in 1970 to start a family and was replaced by cousin Theresa Davis until she returned for the "Flowers" album in 1976.

In 1973 they started work on their third studio album "Songs of Innocence and Experience" (but it was never released at the time but a 'version' of it was subsequently released 33 years later in 2006 by Ace/Kent on CD with additional tracks, including a demo version of The Charmels "As Long As I've Got You"). The same year they appeared at Wattstax performing "Peace Be Still" which was featured on the movie's soundtrack. Stax was in financial difficulty, eventually closing in 1975 with the group leaving to join Columbia where they hooked up with Maurice White and Charles Stepney signing to White's Kalimba setup. 

It was their most successful commercial period with a #1 hit on both R&B and Hot 100 charts with the Maurice White and Al McKay song  "Best Of My Love" (Wanda on lead) in 1977 from their platinum selling #1 R&B album "Rejoice". In 1979 they collaborated with EW&F on "Boogie Wonderland" which reached  #2 Hot 100, but it would prove to be their last foray into the Hot 100. Other minor hits included "Flowers", "I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love", "Don't Ask My Neighbors" (on which Sheila took lead) and "Shouting Out Love". 

To cash in on their success of "Rejoice", a rejuvenated Stax, now owned by Fantasy, released an album of both released and unreleased Stax material, "Sunshine", in 1977. Their follow up album on Columbia, "Sunbeam", whilst not as successful, did sell enough copies to go gold but had no real standout singles, in fact some of the better tracks were relegated to B sides such as "Changes", "Love Vibes" (Brazil only) and "Ain't No Doubt About It" and a couple of others which weren't released as singles.

Two more albums were released on Columbia either side of the change of decade "Coming Into Our World" (1979) and "New Affair" (1981) and they then left. They were a bit disappointed that "Boogie Wonderland" was never released on any of their albums.

Only two more studio albums were released by the group "Sincerely" (1984) and "If I Only Knew" (1985). They released a live album in 1996 and feature on several tracks on Key Of Life (a Japanese house producer) album in 1999 and on one track ("All In The Way") on EW&F's "The Promise" album in 2003.

Album Discography

1969 - So I Can Love You

1971 - Untouched

1973 - Songs of Innocence and Experience (unreleased)

1976 - Flowers (Gold)

1977 - Rejoice (Platinum)

1977 - Sunshine (a Stax issue after they had left)

1978 - Sunbeam (Gold)

1979 - Come into Our World

1981 - New Affair

1984 - Sincerely

1985 - If I Only Knew

1996 - Live In '96 (Live album)

1999 - Key Of Life Feat. The Emotions - Key Of Life II

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